Transcript

Evander Holyfield is a former heavyweight-boxing champion of the world, earning him the nickname, “The Real Deal.” He holds notable victories over such fighters as Buster Douglas, Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes, George Foreman, and Riddick Bowe.

During his boxing career he earned a staggering $205 million in prize money, $92 million alone in his last five fights.

Before going broke, Holyfield once owned a 54,000 square foot, 109 room, 17 bathroom mansion in Fayetteville, Georgia. He was an avid collector of cars and had a stable of thoroughbred horses worth millions.

His estate was situated on hundreds of acres, where he has built a regulation-size baseball diamond and miles of horse trails and motorcycle trails. He had a restaurant in the city of Atlanta bearing his name.

Though Holyfield accomplished so much in his illustrious career and will be remembered as one of the great champions of all time, he continued to fight after losing his boxing crown. In an interview with author Gary Thomas, when asked why he kept on fighting, he confessed simply, “Because I’m bored.”

There are many similar stories of those who’ve reached the pinnacle of their careers, who made millions upon millions of dollars, who can buy anything and own things we only dream about, who can just lie back, relax, do whatever they want, travel the world, live wherever they’d like, and they’re some of the most unhappy people in the world.

Like King Solomon they’ve found that material things, pleasure, and money do not bring true happiness, and with him they could cry, “All is vanity,” or it’s all meaningless!

In Ecclesiastes chapter 2, we find another up-to-date analysis of living life here in this world, and what is found when trying to find happiness and purpose under the sun.

The book is a warning for the reader to not waste their life doing a futile search for purpose apart from God, as Solomon had done, but to rather to find our purpose in God.

Ecclesiastes 2:1-2: “I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also is vanity. I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?”

In chapter 1, after trying to find meaning in life through intellectualism and education and failing and finding only emptiness, Solomon decided to pursue another course.

Chapter 2 starts with something that’s a problem for everyone, “I said in mine heart.” He trusted himself, his own heart and his own wisdom to find purpose in life.

Rather than looking first to God and His Word and rather than looking to those more experienced than himself in life for their counsel and advice, he felt he knew best. He made himself the authority for finding meaning.

We should all be very careful about trusting our own hearts and desires, because as Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”

Following our heart can lead us to follow the wrong things and make poor choices in life. We should not follow our hearts, instead our hearts need to be led and guided in the right direction based on the truth of the Word of God rightly divided.

Solomon says, “I said to myself, I will prove or test the meaning of life with pleasure.” It seemed reasonable to Solomon that one could be happy if they could just enjoy enough pleasure and amusement in life.

And as he already at this point thoroughly researched and investigated pleasure, Solomon doesn’t beat around the bush, stating “this also is vanity.”

He just says right up front, “This also is all futility.” Taking this trail as far as one could take it, Solomon said it’s an empty trip.

Now the question is, will we believe the truth rather than the lie ahead of time, and save ourselves months and even years of our lives, and not waste our time ending up disillusioned, deceived, and let down by what the world believes does give happiness?

Will we believe what Solomon experienced and what the Bible says when it tells us the truth about pleasure?

Life’s true purpose is not found in pleasure, but in God. The Bible is not anti-pleasure, but it is God first. It is not wrong to enjoy good things that bring us pleasure in life. But it is wrong to be “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” as 2 Timothy 3:4 says.

And true pleasure is found above the sun in the presence of God. Psalm 16:11 tells us, “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are PLEASURES for evermore.”

In verse 1, we find that Solomon sought the meaning of life with “mirth.” Mirth speaks of gladness, hilarity, merriment, amusement. The term is associated many times with festivals, holidays, and parties.

Solomon decided to investigate laughter and amusement and called for the jesters, and commanded the clowns and comedians and entertainers to be brought out, to see their acts and hear their one-liners, and watch their skits. And he was amused by their routines, jokes, and humor.

He threw big parties in his palace and arranged festivals with huge feasts, eating the choicest foods, watching the most gifted entertainers, listening to the finest musicians.

He brought on the fun and games and lived it up and had a good time, and thought surely that this would bring him the satisfaction he longed for.

But when the party was over and everyone left, and Solomon examined his heart, he found that he wasn’t happy, and there was no point and purpose in it all.

Billy Graham wrote of a disturbed patient who consulted a therapist for help. He was suffering from deep depression. Nothing he had tried could help.

He woke up discouraged and blue, and the condition worsened as the day progressed. Now he was desperate; he couldn’t go on this way.

Before he left the office, the therapist told him about a show in one of the local theaters. It featured an Italian clown who had the audience rolling with laughter night after night.

The doctor recommended that his patient attend the show, that it would be excellent therapy to laugh for a couple of hours and forget his troubles. Just go and see the Italian clown! With a hangdog expression, the patient muttered, “I am that clown.”

Like Solomon in verse 2, he too could say of laughter: It’s madness! And of mirth, “What does it accomplish?” As we know from comedians in our day, they often suffer from depression and have drug and alcohol abuse problems, and are miserable in life.

In Proverbs 14:13, Solomon wrote there, “Even in laughter the heart may sorrow, and the end of mirth [is] grief.”

Solomon sought meaning for his life through laughter, parties, festivals, and amusement, and bluntly says it’s all just madness.

And the implied answer to “What doeth it?” or “what does it accomplish?” is absolutely nothing. The party life isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. In the end, people will only find the same hollow feeling as Solomon.

When pleasure is put at the center of one’s life, the result will be emptiness. When Christ is put at the center of one’s life, there is meaning, purpose, and true joy.

As it’s been put, “Pleasure offers to lift us above the routine. So much of our living seems bound to the ordinary. It is hobbled by the patterns we learned in childhood; it is grooved by the habits we developed as teenagers…

“It is fettered by the cords of conformity our culture puts upon us. Often we long to bolt off on our own free course. Pleasure lets us do that…temporarily.”

Today’s world, and our country, is pleasure-mad. Billions of dollars are spent annually to buy experiences and to try to escape life’s burdens, and to keep attempting to capture an elusive feeling through an experience, a thrill, a good laugh, and a good time.

Again there is nothing wrong with innocent fun when understood in its place, but when one builds their life on seeking temporary pleasure, they’re going to end up disappointed.

And those who live for pleasure often find that enjoyment will decrease unless the intensity of the pleasure increases, and so it leads to greater and greater desire and even bondage and addiction and it becomes a continuous cycle without finding satisfaction.

Ecclesiastes 2:3: “I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life.”

Trying to lift his spirits, Solomon turned to spirits. He sought satisfaction in a bottle. When it says “yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom,” it means he guided his heart with wisdom as far as wine was concerned and was careful with it.

He wasn’t going out and getting drunk and he did not become addicted to strong drink.

Wondering if there was more than he realized to the bottle, he decided to give himself to wine with wisdom, in a careful controlled experiment. He became a connoisseur of wine and studied alcohol and its effects.

He was trying by a careful use of it to find its highest possible enjoyment. He did this to see if it would produce satisfaction and find “that which was good for man and what man should do under heaven all the days of their life.”

But in doing so, Solomon wrote, drinking was just laying “hold on folly.” He embraced the casual drinking lifestyle of so many, but in the end to him it was all just foolishness.

He thoroughly tested the benefits of the drinking of wine toward any lasting benefit and purpose for his life, but in the end he found it was just pointless and empty.

Beer commercials paint a picture that drinking is what life’s all about. Everyone is always smiling and having a great time, and people buy into it.

They don’t show the wrecked lives, destroyed marriages, lives lost from people drinking and driving that have come through the abuse of alcohol.

Our culture puts pressure on people to drink, and if you don’t you are thought to be strange, you aren’t accepted, and are sometimes even avoided.

Solomon concluded that depending on alcohol as a source for happiness would only lead to emptiness. He only found dissatisfaction in the bottle and that it brings no true peace.

To find true peace and satisfaction, we need to look above the sun to Jesus Christ. As Paul wrote, “seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1).

Ecclesiastes 2:4-7: “I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees: I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house…”

One man who suddenly found himself on a hospital bed facing a serious health issue, said this, “I came to realize I no longer really cared for what the world chases after, such as how much money you have in the bank and how many cars are parked in the garage.

“As it says in Ecclesiastes, chasing after these things is like chasing the wind, anyway. Suddenly, the rat race became vanity to me, utter vanity.

“If I died, I would take none of that stuff with me. All that really mattered ultimately was my relationship with the Lord, and my relationship with family and friends.

“If it weren’t for the loss of my health, I could have wasted the rest of my life chasing achievements and acquiring more transitory things.”

God has given us Ecclesiastes so we won’t waste our time living only for the temporary, and so we’ll realize our relationship with the Lord is what’s most important.

From the vast riches and resources at his command as king, Solomon turned his energy to creating a utopian world all his own filled with his own magnificent creations.

Education, pleasure, and wine didn’t hold the key, but Solomon thought a lavish estate and beautiful houses surely would make life worth living.

So Solomon made great works and built houses. According 1 Kings 7:1, it took him 13 years to build his luxurious palace.

In 1 Kings 7:2, we learn about a dwelling place he built called “the house of the forest of Lebanon.” It had an outstanding feature of four rows of large cedar pillars in it.

He built the house of the Lord, the temple, one of the most glorious buildings of the ancient world. He built luxurious houses for his queens. He built many other buildings of various kinds and spared no expense.

He surrounded himself with awe-inspiring magnificence and beauty. He planted acres of vineyards, built enormous estates and paradises of parks and gardens, with groves of trees and orchards with “all kind of fruits” punctuating the landscape.

Such a vast estate required irrigation during the hot, dry summers, so Solomon constructed aqueducts, lakes, and ponds, with canals, ditches, and ducts to transport the water.

Solomon had his great works and he had multitude of workers for it, as he had a large number of male and female servants who were needed to operate and maintain his estates. He had servants he purchased and servants who were born in his house.

As it was in Solomon’s day, so it is in ours, that a symbol of supposed greatness is seen in being served by others. But a greater than Solomon came to this world, and showed that true greatness and joy lies not in being served, but in sacrificially serving others.

The Lord taught His disciples, “But whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister, and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:43-45).

Solomon found only “vanity” or emptiness in being served by others. So any kind of thought we might have had about what it would be like to be rich and have servants and finding happiness in this, Solomon says don’t waste your time, it doesn’t mean anything.

God would have us be like His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and we’ll find purpose for our lives as we imitate Him by humbly and lovingly putting others first and being a servant.

Ecclesiastes 2:7-11: “…also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me:

“I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts.

“So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me.

“And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour.

“Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.”

Haddon Robinson once said: “If there is one message that comes to us in 10,000 seductive voices, it’s the message of our country and our century that life does consist of things [and what we possess]. You can see it on a hundred billboards as you drive down the highway.

“It is the message from the sponsor on television. It is sung to you in jingles on radio. It is blared at you in four-color ads in the newspapers.

“We’re like the donkey that has the carrot extended before it on a stick. The donkey sees the carrot and wants it, so the donkey moves toward it but the carrot moves too.

“The carrot is always there, promising to fill the appetite. But what it promises, it does not deliver.” Solomon experienced this as well. He went after that carrot.

There are many who do the same and make gods of possessions and wealth in this world and believe through this they will find purpose and fulfillment for their lives.

But King Solomon had it all. He had all the possessions and wealth a person could ever dream of. If the accumulation of possessions and wealth could guarantee peace and happiness, then Solomon should have found it. But he didn’t find peace or purpose in these things.

Solomon experienced what we all experience at some point in our lives, and sometimes experience frequently: a frustration that comes when we discover that the material things we think will make us happy never keeps us happy for very long. And then we start thinking about the next thing we want to get that we think will make us happy.

But God never intended for us to find happiness in things. He intents for us to find happiness and purpose in Him.

In verse 7, Solomon wrote that in his pastures were grazing the largest herds and flocks ever owned by any resident of Jerusalem that went before him.

And as far as his financial resources, He had silver and gold in abundance. 1 Kings 10:14 says, “Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold.” 666 talents of gold is about 25 tons of gold!

The pursuit of wealth is the purpose for many in this world. Here was a man who was filthy rich who gained 25 tons of gold per year, but in the end, all this gold meant nothing to him. It brought no purpose to his life.

Solomon owned special treasures presented to him by visiting kings, queens and dignitaries, including spices, precious stones, and valuable objects of art.

This includes the gold, spices, and precious stones that he received from the Queen of Sheba when she came to visit him (1 Kings 10:10).

From the finer things of art, Solomon also searched for purpose through the power and beauty of music.

I Kings 4:32 tells us he wrote 1005 songs and choruses. He assembled the finest singers and vocal performers, both male and female, and all kinds of musical instruments.

We can be sure these singers and ensembles were used for magnificent public concerts and private performances. Many give their entire lives to music and art searching for purpose. But in the end, this was all meaningless and brought no purpose to Solomon’s life.

Solomon’s self-assessment was “So I was great.” He out-climbed all his predecessors on the ladder of prestige, riches, wisdom, fame, and glory.

To look at Solomon is to think he had life by the tail; he had it made. He was rich and famous. But Solomon was empty and unfulfilled, because he left God out of his life.

And then same thing will happen to us if we try to live and find purpose without God. The Lord gives our lives meaning and purpose. When you put a relationship with God into the picture everything changes.

In verse 10, Solomon stated that he could buy anything he wanted and he indulged in any worldly pleasure he desired. If he saw something he wanted, he bought it. If he thought he’d enjoy some pleasure, he treated himself to it.

Solomon says “my heart rejoiced in all my labor, and this was my portion [or reward] of all my labor.” His happiness was sustained only in the process of doing great works and projects and in the accumulating of riches. That was his only reward and portion.

He found delight “IN” his labor, but afterward, when he considered his works and wealth, he saw only “vanity,” emptiness. Ambrose Bierce called achievement “the death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.”

Solomon wrote, “When I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.”

After all was said and done, when Solomon stepped back and looked at his palace and great houses, and his vast estate with its gardens and orchards, it all brought incomplete satisfaction and, he concluded it was all vanity and chasing after the wind.

And the same will be true of us if we give our lives to accumulate great wealth and achieve great accomplishments like Solomon, we know that at the end of the journey if we realize our goals, we will only find the same thing he did: meaninglessness.

Solomon’s search for purpose through wisdom, wit, wine, works, wealth, worldly recognition and worldly pleasures left him empty.

His whole experiment yielded a negative result and he found nothing in this world that brought him permanent or abiding fulfillment.

And that’s because he was looking for it in the wrong place, under the sun, in this temporary world. Purpose for our lives is found by looking above and living by faith in Christ and living for the eternal.

Christ is the answer. Life and life abundantly is found in Him.